How to Write Selling Humor

Humor is ignored and misunderstood in writing. But learning to use humor will improve your writing and your bottom line. These two workshops are from experts who can help you ride the comedy wave to successful humor writing.

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Publisher's Summary

Humor is ignored and misunderstood in writing. But learning to use humor will improve your writing and your bottom line. These two workshops are from experts who can help you ride the comedy wave to successful humor writing.

I began listening to this book thinking it was about how to write "selling humor" in the context of "sales copy with humour injected"... I was wrong - It's very much a book aimed at comedians or comedy writers who want to sell their comedy writing.

If you are in that field, then this audio does provide some good advice, and includes an engaging (but not overly educational) except from a live presentation from a Seinfield writer, which I enjoyed.

If you are wanting to learn how to write sales copy which includes humour, this is NOT that book.

This was obviously an older work, but the first lecture was an interesting summary of the basics. Not advanced, or geared toward one field in particular, but perfectly fine, though aged. The second lecture from the Seinfeld writer was very interesting for the sake of the content, as well as the accidental tips that were given about viewing and writing humour as the lecturer told about the details of his work.

What did you like best about How to Write Selling Humor? What did you like least?

I enjoyed the academic look at humor. There's some really interesting stuff in there.

What was most disappointing about Peter Mehlman and Mel Helitzer ’s story?

The casual sexism, racism, and homophobia when it comes to humor. The talks are from the 80s, and delight in telling people that "fruit" is now a synonym for homosexual and "women and prudes don't like too many sex jokes."

Which scene was your favorite?

The Seinfeld stories.

Did How to Write Selling Humor inspire you to do anything?

Made me realize that approaching humor academically won't work in my writing.

Beware! The first workshop by Peter Mehlman was recorded when President Reagan was still in office so you may find it rather out of date! The constant references to Bob Newhart, Johnny Carson and Bob Hope are another giveaway that this recording has probably lost most of its relevance to today?s comedy writers. Mostly Mehlman talks about selling jokes rather than selling longer comedy sketches and he focuses almost exclusively on selling to the print market. Whilst I managed to get a couple of nuggets from this workshop, most of it was obvious and basic stuff. I found Mehlman?s delivery too slow and rather dreary. Although he tries, he never really manages to evoke much humour. I was, therefore, disappointed by this workshop and I would have been most put out had the second workshop not been a considerable improvement. Mel Helitzer (who delivers the second workshop) is a co-producer and writer on ?Seinfeld? and his presentation is full of funny examples, anecdotes and helpful tips. The problem is that unless you are familiar with ?Seinfeld? you may not appreciate much of what Helitzer is talking about. You may also struggle to understand him since the quality of the recording is not great. Nevertheless, I managed to get several more nuggets from Helitzer to help me with my comedy writing, so the investment of just under three hours and ?7.99 was not entirely wasted. All the same, I won?t be listening to this again and I cannot recommend it as a truly helpful guide to writing comedy.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Noel Mullen

11/29/09

Overall

"Second part much better"

The above review got it the wrong way round, Peter Mehlman did the second talk. I agree with the rest of the review though. The second part was much better. Tip for comedy writing "become a spy in the house of me" meaning taking notice of all your actions.

0 of 0 people found this review helpful

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